Skipper KL Rahul said that he wants his side to learn from the mistake made against Chennai Super Kings and bounce back stronger in the tournament.
“There’s not much more to say. If any team loses five wickets in the first seven or eight overs, it’s always going to catch up. They bowled well, we played some bad shots, that’s how the game goes,” Rahul said in the post-match presentation.
Chahar ran through Punjab Kings’ top-heavy batting order dismissing Mayank Agarwal and Nicholas Pooran for a duck while sending back Chris Gayle and Deepak Hooda for 10 runs respectively followed by a match winning innings from Moen Ali leading to a comfortable win for CSK.
“It (pitch) was a lot more sticky and tacky than what it looked like. Credit to the CSK bowlers, they bowled in the right channels, Deepak with his knuckle balls got a couple of wickets, getting myself run-out doesn’t help the team,” he further said.
Punjab Kings had scored more than 200 runs in their first game but the Rahul-led side wasn’t even able to cross the 110-run mark against CSK on Friday.
“Last game we got 220, this game we couldn’t get even half of it. It’s important that we learn from our mistakes and that’s the sort of team we want to be. We still want to go out there and play fearless cricket,” said Rahul.
Riley Meredith and Jhye Richardson might have bowled well against CSK but the two bowlers were expensive in Punjab Kings’ opening game in the IPL 2021.
“It was good to see that they came back stronger this game and they gave us crucial breakthroughs. We’d like to review ourselves on the key points that we speak about before the game and if we stuck to those plans,” he added.
Punjab Kings will next face Delhi Capitals at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday.
-With ANI inputs.